First Falls
by IronRaven
Summary: Shippou learns a great secret about Inuyasha, and life. This is dedicated to a good friend, and fellow follower of the Gaurdian's Path who is no longer with us. Ron, a stop light on the interstate, just for you.


First Falls   
by IronRaven 

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and company aren't mine. They are the property of Rumiko Takahashi-sama. 

PG, for language. Otherwise, I'd rate it G, and say it's a life lesson. For once, Inuyasha hit the nail on the head. 

This story is being released early, in memory of my Uncle Ron, who passed on this past weekend. The Gaurdian's Path was one he believed in. *raising a toast to him* This is a memorial to him. 

And if you ever see a crosswalk painted on the highway, it was his spirit at play. 

--- 

Atop an outcropping of granite, Inuyasha sat awake, as always, but more aware than normal. The rain of that morning still soaked much of the land, and muffling the possible sounds of an approaching enemy. But the rain likewise had washed away old scents, making it harder to hide from the nose of the hanyou. His nose twitched as he tried to make up for the differences. 

Below him, his friends slept with varying degrees of success. Even taking shelter under over hanging stone, the air was so damp that even dry ground wasn't totally dry. Sango slept as well as she ever did, warmed by the firecat curled in a ball on her belly. Likewise, Shippou kept Kagome warm. But Miroku moaned with any movement he made, a fresh bandage around his head. It hadn't been much of a fight, but it wasn't much of an injury- messy, painful, and not very serious. 

He almost missed the kitsune's footsteps leading off in the night, heading down wind. _Kid probably needs to use the bushes. He'll be back._ As clouds slithered across the sky, borne on the chill breeze, Inuyasha slowly began to become concerned. _He's taking too long for a piss. And I can't smell anything that way._ "Damnit, runt, I just got comfortable. 

Hopping down, Inuyasha slowly, quietly followed the path of broken leaves, listening for any signs of trouble. Ahead, he heard a soft thump and a quiet grunt. _What was that?_ Hurrying his pace, the hanyou's hand dropped the grip of the Tessaiga, his thumb ready to flick his blade free of its sheath. Less than a score of steps brought him to a small clearing. 

At the clearing's edge, Shippou sat on a fallen tree, his back to Inuyasha, and his head down. As he watched, the boy's fist slams back down into the old wood, with the same little grunt he'd heard before. "I think it's dead, Shippou." 

"AIEEEEEE!!!!!!" Leaping into the air, turning as he did so, the kit found himself on level with the smirking dog boy, before gravity pulled him back down. "Inuyasha, don't do that!" 

"Fine, don't wander off without telling someone." 

Turning his back on the elder demon, Shippou looked back at the ground. "Why not? If I do, you'll only follow, and someone will get hurt." 

"What the hell are you talking about?" Reaching down, lifting the boy by a handful of his vest, Inuyasha lifted him to stand on top of the tree trunk. _Don't have to look down as far like this._

"Miroku. He got hurt saving me." 

The white-haired youth scowled at his young friend. "Feh! It isn't your fault that those birds attacked us. They were after the shards, and you fried that one that almost got to Kagome." 

"And it's flockmate tried to carry me away as a result." 

_The monk wasn't busy, kid, or I would have been the one to save your runty ass._ "So, we got you back." 

Glaring at the taller warrior, Shippou continued. "And it wasn't the first time. Every time someone gets hurt saving me. I'm in the way half the time, and useless most of the rest it!" 

"Crap! How many times have you saved Kagome?" 

"And how many time's haven't I? How many times have you or Sango or Miroku needed to save Kagome because I couldn't, and had to rescue me too." Pouting, the boy turned away, plunking down onto the log. Inuyasha stood there, thinking, trying to find an answer, his ears wiggling as the information moved around in his head. 

"So you are just going to sit there and whine like Sesshomaru does?" 

Turning to glare over his shoulder, the kit's lips pulled back in a snarl, his tiny fangs showing. "At least he can fight! I'm too little." 

"Fine. If you want to be too little, we can keep saving you." 

"Go to hell, halfbreed!" As soon as the stinging, hateful word left his mouth, Shippou wished he could take them back. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha, I didn't mean it." Burying his face in his hands, the boy started to softly sob, tears of self-pity starting to flow. 

Clumsily running his hand though the kid's hair, Inuyasha tried to think of what Kagome would do in this situation. Then what Sango would do. Or maybe Kaede. _Hell with it! I can't be like them._ "The other option is you can start growing up, runt. I was younger than you when I _had_ to learn how to fight. 

Raising his face, the fox boy looked up at his older friend. "You'll teach me?" 

"Feh, I just said I would, didn't I?" 

"Now?" Looking about, Shippou suddenly wondered about the wisdom of this. 

"Why not? Scared of the dark?" 

"No, of course not." _I'm not a little kid, to be scared of the night._

Stepping across the fallen tree, Inuyasha moved to the center of the small clearing, and turned to face the boy. "Prove it." 

"What?" 

His voice mocking, the hanyou crossed his arms in a bored manner. "What's the matter? Need Kagome here to make sure I'm not too rough? If you really want to learn how to fight, you had better be able to take some taunts." 

Confused and annoyed, Shippou got to his feet. "What is your problem, Inuyasha? Why are you being this mean?" 

"What's the matter, little Shippou, need your mommy? Little baby Shi..." 

His blood starting to boil, the hair on his back and tail standing, Shippou's hands curled into fists at his sides. "I'm not a baby!!" 

"Really, runt? I don't think you are big enough to be a fighter!" With that final taunt, Shippou charged Inuyasha. As the boy clumsily swung at his foe, Inuyasha reached down and picked him up by the most convenient handle, the tail. Lifting the struggling boy to eye level, Inuyasha continued to speak in a calm, almost patient voice. "First lesson is, don't loose your temper unless you know you can take them." 

"You loose yours!" 

"Because I'm bigger. You are too little to loose your temper." 

_Riiight, dog boy, that's why you get pasted when you get angry._ "Feh!" 

Hearing the kid toss his favorite expression at him, Inuyasha laughed, dropping the kit. 

--- 

Back at camp, Kagome rolled over in her sleep. Something inside her woke her at that. 

"Shippou?" Looking around, she quietly called the boy's name. No, he wasn't with Sango or Miroku, and Kirara was with Sango. Quietly, she slipped from her sleeping bag, and slid her feet into her shoes. Looking the side of the cliff, she could see neither of the demon boys at it's top. "Shippou? Inuyasha?" 

Worried, Kagome went back under the outcropping, kneeling next to Sango, gently shaking her shoulder. "Sango? Sango, wake up." 

"You! Oh, hi, Kagome. What's wrong?" The huntress yawned, still tired as she looked about. 

Inuyasha and Shippou are gone. I didn't hear anything, and it didn't look like there was a fight, but..." 

"You want someone to go with you in case something is wrong, right?" Sliding the little cat from her belly, Sango rolled the blanket off of her. As was often the case, she slept in the black suit of her armour, lacking only the shoulder pads and her sword. As she stood, she slung the Hairikitsu over her shoulder. "Kirara, stay here and look after Houshi-sama." 

With a little mewl, the cat blinked at her mistress, and reluctantly trotted across the cold stone to the sleeping monk. She sniffed him once, and decided he'd make a suitable bed. The girls examined the undergrowth near the almost cave as the cat's tails covered her nose, and she was soon as asleep as a feline ever is. 

"You are right, Kagome, no signs of a fight. But there is broken grass that way. Someone little and then someone big." 

Looking at the grass, Kagome could barely even make out that someone had gone that way. "How can you tell?" 

"A smaller person's feet don't lift as high and their legs are shorter. They went first, you can see where the taller person stepped on the grass the shorter one bent over. And that broken branch is too high for someone with the steps that short." With what she thought was a self-apparent explanation, Sango started down the track, moving silently. 

_And I thought I was the only one here who used magic._ Shaking her head, and trusting her friend, Kagome followed, but not as quietly. Eyes following the pale shape of the bone weapon before her, Kagome tried to avoid stumbling over things in the dark. Part of her wished she had brought her light with her, as she felt a twig crack under foot. 

Slowly, Sango crouched, pointing ahead of them. "There they are, Kagome." 

In the clearing, Inuyasha had driven a leafy branch, broken by wind over the past few days, into the ground. Shippou stood before it, crouched slightly, his hands in front of him. The girls watched as the kitsune's foot swung up at the leaves. 

"Not like that. Like this." His foot moving with exaggerated slowness, Inuyasha formed the same swipe at a point in mid air. "You are rolling with your knee. Roll on your ankle and hip, they are made to turn like that. Your knee isn't. If I grabbed your foot, I could break your knee while it was locked like that and you'd couldn't stop me." 

Showing Shippou what he had done wrong, then kicking the proper way again, Inuyasha looked at the kit. "Try again." 

Shippou did so, this time to Inuyasha's satisfaction, ruffling the leaves. "I can feel the difference." 

"Sango, what are they doing?" 

The lady exterminator turned to her friend, looking at Kagome as if she had just said the sky was red. "Shippou is learning to fight." 

"What?" Starting to stand, Kagome took a step forward. 

Sango reached up, pulling her friend back down. "Wait. Shippou needs this. He needs to learn how to fight, or soon we will not be able to protect him." 

"But Inuyasha doesn't have the patience to teach. He'll hurt Shippou." 

"No, he won't Kagome. His father is dead, and he has no brother or uncle to learn from. We aren't nobles, Kagome, we learn from family, not from a hired tutor. You learn from your father, unless he's dead. If your mother does not take another man, you learn from an uncle or an older brother. Inuyasha is the closest there is." Sango gently smiled into the darkness. _Closest there is to his mother having taken another man._

"Oh." As they sat there, watching the lesson, Kagome thought. "We need to teach him more, don't we." 

"He's learning a lot for our world. He's seeing something other than a rice patty and a field, he knows there is a world past the hill after next." 

_But he isn't learning very much for my world._ Surprised by the thought, Kagome frowned. _Where did that come from._ Sango interrupted that internal discussion. 

"Oh, that is interesting." In the clearing, Inuyasha was showing Shippou how to push an opponent back with an open handed strike. As Shippou struck, blue flames swirled around his hand, his strength and the explosive release of foxfire sending the now smoldering branch over. "Much more effective than an open hand." 

"Come on, let's go back, it's nearly dawn." Gently tugging at her friend's shoulder, Kagome turned back towards camp. _Maybe I should ask Sango to teach Shippou some as well. And Miroku and I can teach him to read. _

Looking up from the branch, two demonic smirks met. "Not bad, runt. Use what you have." _You'll need it._ "It's nearly dawn, let's head back. If Kagome wakes up, she'll be looking for us, and I'll get blamed for it." 

"Inuyasha, lesson one was don't get angry. What is lesson two?" 

"Don't lose." 

"Well, of course." 

Stopping in his tracks, Inuyasha's eyes closed. His father and the family retainers had taught this to him, taught him over and over again. It was a lesson he'd learned too many times. "No. If you are fighting only for yourself, you die if you lose. If you are fighting to protect another, and you fail, they will be hurt." Images and memories crashed against him like a tsunami. _Okaa-san. Kikyou._ "If you die, they still get hurt, you just get to hide from your mistake. So you never, ever loose." More memories. _Mistress Centipede. Yura. The Thunder Brothers. Rouyakan. The night at Mushin's. The phony water god._ Reaching down, tucking the boy under his arm, Inuyasha headed to the treetops. "Come on, Kagome will be worried." 

As the damp morning air flowed through his fur, Shippou looked up at Inuyasha's face. _Is that how he feels? That if we get hurt, he failed us?_


End file.
